Today’s lower classes are harmed far more by programs which tell them they will be supported regardless of the life decisions they make, than they would be if they were told they’d have to live with the consequences of bad decisions. If someone who would rather spend money on a 50″ television than on food complains of hunger, rewarding such complains with charity will simply encourage other people to get 50″ televisions, since their choices aren’t just “food and no television” or “television and no food”, but they can also get “television and food as well”.

If someone decides he’ll be happy spending half as much on food as some other people, if he can spend the balance toward getting a fancy television, that should be his right. If he is in fact satisfied with the reduced food budget, his decision may be a good one. If, however, he ends up being unacceptably hungry as a result, it is not a judgment call for others to say his decision should not be rewarded. Either he is genuinely unsatisfied with his food budget, in which case he would have been better off spending less on television and more on food, making his decision a bad one which should not be rewarded, or else he is exaggerating his hunger, which should also not be rewarded.

Society can only function when people have incentives to minimize their needs. Rewarding those who maximize their needs is a recipe for disaster.

]]>By: Leon Wolfesonhttp://www.theagitator.com/2012/03/14/morning-links-632/comment-page-2/#comment-2919140
Sat, 17 Mar 2012 01:15:49 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=24187#comment-2919140@87 – No, why would I bother providing evidence when a basic reading of history shows that even “developed” countries have only in the last century generally stopped significant numbers of their own citizens from suffering starvation and malnutrition.

And again, private charity is great as long as you’re the “right sort”. Social Darwinism, in other words. There should be no NEED for the *basics* to be covered by people spending their private time. This is what a state is FOR.

But back in reality, some of us actually want a system which allows people to thrive and fosters individualism. The closest thing to that which we have…is the Nordic Model.

The closest thing to yours? Somalia. Tribalism.

]]>By: Leon Wolfesonhttp://www.theagitator.com/2012/03/14/morning-links-632/comment-page-2/#comment-2918244
Fri, 16 Mar 2012 21:56:52 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=24187#comment-2918244@64 – Hobbsian? No, that’s the people calling for the government to be dissolved.

@69 – Sure, let the poor starve and you no longer have the poor. Congratulations, you’ve solved poverty!

@76 – The untouchables, the lower class, blacks, Jews… making things morally conditional has a storied history.

Why would I be joking? You have presented zero evidence that there was mass starvation before the advent of government-based welfare programs.

Wrong. The programs (any program, really) merely need a minority who do want them and a majority who does not care. Welcome to the United States.

Sounds like private charity would work just fine then, right? A majority support is not needed for private charity to function.

We don’t have an a la carte tax system whereby you can choose which policies you want to be taxed over. There is no system that you can decide that your tax dollars are specifically to go to this but not to that. It simply doesn’t work like that.

For example, I …

This entire set of paragraphs seems to be making my argument for me. Yes, you can’t choose where your taxes go. You would like your money to go to those who need it and not to various warmongers/corporate welfare/etc. So why do you denigrate the system that would allow you to do this (voluntarism) and support the system that does the opposite of what you want (statism/collectivism)? This confuses me.

That’s the system we live in. Governments tax and spend. If you can’t accept that, then there is no point in discussing any particular policy of tax or spend. We’d have to begin by discussing why there is this newfangled concept called society and government.

Why are you trying to counter my normative statements with positive ones? Yes, governments tax and spend. They do a shitty job of it. This has nothing to do with whether or not governments should exist, something you haven’t tackled yet.

]]>By: supercathttp://www.theagitator.com/2012/03/14/morning-links-632/comment-page-2/#comment-2915828
Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:41:29 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=24187#comment-2915828#73 | PogueMahone | “… and have now moved on to it being a matter of degree. ”

Unexpected charity or support can be beneficial to the recipient, but expectations of charity or undeserved support are highly toxic. It may not be possible to provide even emergency support for people without creating some expectation, and having some of that expectation create need which would not otherwise exist, but it’s imperative that the new need created be a small fraction of the support given.

If one measures efficiency as one minus the quantity of new need created per support dollar spent, aid will be 90% efficient if each dollar of support creates $0.10 of new need, 50% efficient if each support dollar creates $0.50 of new need, or 10% if each support dollar creates $0.90 of new need, etc. There may be room for judgment in deciding whether it is worthwhile to give support in a manner which is 50% efficient. On the other hand, if each dollar of support generates more than a dollar of new need, efficiency will go negative. It makes no sense to spend *any* money in a way which yields negative efficiency.

Who gets to decide who falls into the “denied welfare so as to serve as a warning to others” category? Would these decisions be made locally?

That’s what I alluded to when I said that it’s a state matter working through the particularly needy communities such as communities that were rocked by financial devastation beyond their reasonable control (ex being the big employer outsourcing their jobs). As a prudential consideration, welfare should be a policy that is used sparingly to target particular situations, not a blanket policy that is always there.

]]>By: RobZhttp://www.theagitator.com/2012/03/14/morning-links-632/comment-page-2/#comment-2909895
Thu, 15 Mar 2012 20:20:32 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=24187#comment-2909895“As a society, we actually need the drunkards, drug addicts, the promiscuous, etc. to be denied welfare so as to serve as a warning to others of why those behaviors ought to be avoided by personal choice.”

Who gets to decide who falls into the “denied welfare so as to serve as a warning to others” category? Would these decisions be made locally?

As a matter of public policy, yes. Once again: Liberty has consequences [if you choose to abuse it]. Let private charity choose to minister to them.

I have a better idea. How about preventing anybody who says a single perjorative word about “government handouts” and “entitlements” from claiming any form of government assistance, like subsidies, tax concessions etc?

How about we do the same to anyone who says a single pejorative word about police powers from claiming police protection while we’re at it? Oh wait…

]]>By: Graham Shevlinhttp://www.theagitator.com/2012/03/14/morning-links-632/comment-page-2/#comment-2909097
Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:18:10 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=24187#comment-2909097“As a society, we actually need the drunkards, drug addicts, the promiscuous, etc. to be denied welfare so as to serve as a warning to others of why those behaviors ought to be avoided by personal choice.”

OK, so then we need to make sure that a significant percentage of corporate leaders, politicians, showbiz people and other wealthy individuals should not be able to claim any government benefits. That’ll teach them…
Oh, wait a minute…
I have a better idea. How about preventing anybody who says a single perjorative word about “government handouts” and “entitlements” from claiming any form of government assistance, like subsidies, tax concessions etc?

]]>By: Benhttp://www.theagitator.com/2012/03/14/morning-links-632/comment-page-2/#comment-2908717
Thu, 15 Mar 2012 16:03:45 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=24187#comment-2908717“Private charities that are able to get to know would-be recipients of aid are generally capable of handling the guys who are just down on their luck without many problems.”

Private charities are generally either 1. church based, 2. dedicated to people who are suffering from some specific medical ailment or 3. dedicated to a specific subset of aggrieved people, such as battered women, etc. I don’t know of too many secular private charities that just have a general fund to help random poor people out with their rent. So if you’re atheist and don’t fall into either of the other charities, you’d be truly fucked.

“As a society, we actually need the drunkards, drug addicts, the promiscuous, etc. to be denied welfare so as to serve as a warning to others of why those behaviors ought to be avoided by personal choice.”

“DI is disability insurance; incidentally, DI will go broke this decade so no need to worry about 2030 ratios.”

I should have caught that. Thanks for the correction.

Returning to the original topic:

Robert Reich has pointed out that in 1983, the SS cap was set so that 90% of household income was taxed. Now, it’s dropped to 84%. Raise the cap to 90% as it was in 1983 and the SS problem goes away for the foreseeable future.

In any event, Medicare is in much much worse shape and there don’t appear to be any relatively easy fixes for it.

]]>By: Boyd Durkinhttp://www.theagitator.com/2012/03/14/morning-links-632/comment-page-2/#comment-2908437
Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:57:18 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=24187#comment-2908437So much oofda in this thread.
]]>By: Mike Thttp://www.theagitator.com/2012/03/14/morning-links-632/comment-page-2/#comment-2908424
Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:55:11 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=24187#comment-2908424Additionally, the point about the guy who is just down on his luck that liberals often seem to miss is that except during the Great Depression, there have always been far fewer of them than people whose misery is the product of their own making. Private charities that are able to get to know would-be recipients of aid are generally capable of handling the guys who are just down on their luck without many problems.

As a society, we actually need the drunkards, drug addicts, the promiscuous, etc. to be denied welfare so as to serve as a warning to others of why those behaviors ought to be avoided by personal choice. If people see single mothers getting fatter checks as they have more babies, drug addicts getting top quality health care, etc. there are a lot of people who end up taking home the wrong message about personal choices. In a sociological sense, it’s like a market distortion of the same degree and similar kind as the bailouts of the financial sector.